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Wednesday, 12 September 2012

The Son of a Preacher(wo)man

Without sounding like a Baz Luhrmannsong, everyone needs: a rocking chair / bouncer / pram / fuel efficient
car / strong arms (delete as appropriate). I did say I wouldn't preach or write this blog to give out advice, but what a godsend any of the above are.

It hadn't occurred to me that having a baby would entail
hours of finding tricks of the trade to get them to sleep. You'd think that a
little human being would instinctively close their eyes if they were tired...or
maybe our little boy is like his mummy (as I should be resting rather than
writing this).
You join the I-am-at-my-wits-end club when you're out pushing the pram at dusk
(aka the baby witching hours) and when you see other parents doing the same you
give each other a knowing tired nod.

But wow: the adult rocking chair - a new discovery at 'week 13'. We could have
done with this before - good for getting little ones to sleep whilst
simultaneously winding them and giving your arms and back a break. Mind you,
you also feel like a 90 year old lady who's lost her marbles sitting on her
front porch in Louisiana
rocking back 'n' forth on her chair. But still, it's quite therapeutic.

The 'books' say to start sleep training them early: getting
them to sleep by themselves, all good in theory but what if that means trying this for over two
hours? It's no coincidence that Rock-a-bye Baby is a popular nursery rhyme, people have
been using the swaying technique for centuries.
If you are a parent reading this, own up - how many of you have been caught out
moving back 'n' forth automatically when you hear a baby crying? Queuing up is my
favourite place to jiggle without even realising. Even our baby bouncer has
been engineered to rock when our little one stirs.

We were at our antenatal friends' BBQ the other day with all our new family
additions (that's how we roll these days) when they announced they had found a
new way to get their little one off to snoozeville. They coined this 'the daddy
swing' - involving a certain moving technique coupled with the father and it
even came with props - I wonder how you patent that?

So it works for us for now, and yes we know we may have made a rod for our
sore backs, but we need to sleep too, speaking of which...